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Dr. Gourmet's Food Reviews

More Gluten-Free Cookies

I am not much of a cookie eater, but I was noticing the number
of them on sale when I was traveling abroad last week. In Italy and France
there were cookies everywhere, and while I wasn't tempted, it would have been
challenging if I were because none was gluten free.

"That's a bit of a shame," I thought, as I looked in one
pastry shop window decorated with Halloween cookies. That's because in some
cases the gluten free flours used for baking might be superior because you don't
need the same light, airy texture of bread that comes from wheat flours because
of the elasticity and resilience of the gluten they contain.

Wandering the aisles in my grocery upon returning home I
found a broad expansion of gluten free products in the cookie section. There is
now a much larger selection than when we last reviewed gluten free cookies and
I first noticed Tate's Bake Shop cookies. Someone had told me their ginger
snaps were the best ginger snaps (wheat flour or otherwise), but those weren't available.
There were lots of Tate's cookies, but only one gluten free: their Chocolate
Chip.

These are advertised as UNIQUELY CRISPY on the package and
they are indeed thin and crispy with small chunks of chocolate chips. I suspect
that this is from a very (VERY) high butter content. The cookies are flat and
sort of crunchy but then melt away in your mouth. Taking a look at the package
I was not surprised at the fat content: two cookies have 7 grams of fat and 4.5
grams of saturated fat. Read that: BUTTER. Make no mistake: these are really
good cookies. Forget that they are gluten free because you would never know. All
you would know is that they are rich, rich, rich, and at 140 calories for two
an occasional, not an everyday treat.

Next up was the Lucy's Chocolate Chip cookies. Our previous
review of their Sugar Cookies and Oatmeal Cookies was not so good, but these
are really good. They taste a lot like a high quality Chips Ahoy with much more
flavor, a crisp cookie texture, and a nice creamy mouthfeel after chewing the
cookie. There's a more than adequate number of chocolate chips, and with no
peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, or gluten they tick a lot of boxes for folks that are
allergic. At only 130 calories for 3 cookies (each a bit larger than Chips
Ahoy), they are a good choice (they also have 2 grams of fiber as a bonus).

Last were the Glutino Gluten Free Chocolate Chip cookies. Glutino
products are hit or miss, and as they have grown their products have become
more and more commercial. That doesn't mean that have become more and more
better, however, and this is true with these cookies. They are just wrong in
every way. The flavor starts with a strong taste of cocoa and the texture is
almost exactly that of a Chips Ahoy. That's not bad, necessarily, but this
simply does not have the finesse of the other two cookies. At 120 calories for
only two, there's no comparison to the Lucy's product.

The verdict:

Leave the Glutino at the store.
Eat the Lucy's when you want an occasional snack (fiber
bonus!).
Serve the Tate's to your friends.